Episode 70: Untangling the Mess: Strategies for the Chronically Disorganized
Below you can view or listen to Episode 70 of The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast.
Confusion and Executive Functioning
In this episode of the Executive Function Brain Trainer Podcast, Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran explore various decluttering and organizational methods. They discuss strategies like the KonMari Method, the Four Box Method, and the 20-20 Rule, as well as the emotional aspects and psychological benefits of maintaining an organized space. Ideal for parents, educators, and learners of all ages, the episode offers practical tips and insights to help listeners create a joyful and efficient living environment. This episode aims to provide effective tools for overcoming chronic disorganization.
Listen:
Watch Video: CLICK IMAGE BELOW:
Links:
Brought to you by:
Transcript:
Erica: Welcome to the Personal Brain Trainer podcast. I'm Dr Erica Warren.
Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran. And we're your hosts. Join us on an adventure to translate the scientific jargon and brain research into simple metaphors and explanations for everyday life. We explore executive function and learning strategies that help turbocharge the mind.
Erica: Come learn to steer around the invisible barriers so that you can achieve your goals. This podcast is ideal for parents, educators, and learners of all ages.
Darius: This podcast is sponsored by dyslexiaproductivitycoaching.com. we give you a simple productivity system for your Apple devices that harnesses the creativity that comes with your dyslexia.
Erica: This podcast is brought to you by goodsensorylearning.com, where you can find educational and occupational therapy lessons and remedial materials that bring delight to learning. Finally, you can find Dr Warren's many courses at, learningspecialistcourses.com dot. Come check out our newest course on developing executive functions and study strategies.
Darius: Hey, Erica. What have we got this week?
Erica: Hey, Darius. I'm excited, and I like the title, too. Untangling the mess strategies for the chronically disorganized.
Darius: This is going to be a great one. Looking forward to it.
Erica: Yeah. And it's not that I really want to be labeling people as chronically disorganized, but I know I've gone through stages of my life where I've felt chronically disorganized. And I know of people that could really use some support on how to find a new way of being, because I don't think anybody really enjoys being chronically disorganized. So, first of all, like, what is the definition of chronically disorganized? I guess we're talking about when you really can't find anything. You're losing a lot of time in your day. It's frustrating. Your materials are scattered. You may not have a filing cabinet. You may have piles. Now, some people know their piles really well, and it does serve as a form of organization. But if your stuff is kind of in a disarray, it could be in your computer, it could be your desktop, could be a mess. That's where my mess tends to reside. I have to constantly be organizing my computer's desktop, and even my own desktop. I have to spend a certain amount of time organizing and reorganizing. But there's something to it when you have a very organized space, and it's kind of funny. We were just talking about this. It kind of declutters your mind at the same time. And the amount of time that you can save is extraordinary. So we all want more free time. And one of the best ways to have more free time is to really keep yourself quite organized, because then you'll find that, whenever you need something, it's there. It really minimizes frustration. What are your thoughts?
Darius: Well, I have a love hate relationship with organization. I think many people who think a little bit differently are a bit more creative, neurodivergent, dyslexic, ADHD. You know, we have this hate hate relationship sometimes with organization or a love hate relationship. And I think it's quite helpful sometimes to reframe this, because often organization systems are created by organized people, for organized people. So I've heard this said, you know, organizational systems are created by organized people for organized people, and it just makes organized people more organized. But what about all the disorganized people in this world, like me, you know, what do we do? And it's kind of like sometimes it feels like these organization systems don't fit, you know, and I think it's really helpful to realize that there are ways to organize your mind that fit your mind, just like there are types of shoes that fit your feet and some types that don't fit your feet. And just because organization systems haven't fitted you before in the past doesn't mean other organization systems. There is an organization system out there to fit your mind. And when I say fit, it feels good. I mean, it really feels
00:05:00
Darius: good to have a pair of shoes that fit your feet, a jacket that fits your, you know, a hat that fits your head, and an organization system that fits your mind. Yeah, and that's really what we're going to be talking about here, is how to find a way of organizing yourself that fits you as a person. And I think it's important to set some of those expectations. And I think I, I have this conversation nearly on a weekly basis with clients who are kind of coming, and they're saying, right, I think I need to become organized. And I'm like, oh, well, hold on a minute. Let's just maybe get out of that hyper fixation mode of ADHD or whatever. I'm going to get super organized, and then you're suddenly going to, cast it all off and it's going to be another abandoned project. So this is not about being efficient, it's about being effective. And I think once you shift your emphasis to becoming effective rather than efficient, you start realizing organization systems aren't there just to make everything efficient. It's not a filing cabinet, it's not a computer. It's about being effective. And I think I've seen in people when they go, ah, I want to be effective. And then they realize they're tapping into their core driver. And this organization isn't something like the teacher or your parents who's imposing on you that doesn't fit, but it's something that comes out of part of you, part of what you want, and you want the minimum required to get what you effectively want. And I think that's what we're going to talk about, isn't it?
Erica: Yeah. And it's funny, you triggered something just in that dialogue in me that makes me want to go a little bit off, track and talk about, it's something that we've talked about many times, which is the different types of information processing. So we all process slightly differently from each other and have processing preferences. So some people like to see things that makes it very memorable. Some people like to hear things, some people like to touch things, some people like to, they need to bring movement into things. Other, particularly when it comes to organization, they really enjoy sequencing, or they need to see the big picture and they want to kind of web things. There are also those that need to think about things, there are those that need to interact with others about things. There are those that need to verbalize, there are those that need to watch a demonstration, there are those that need the direct experience of actually doing it. And then there are those that music, rhythm, beat, melody, kind of keeps them going. And it can be used in an organizational process. A lot of people really enjoy organizing while they're listening to music. and what I just did is I went through the twelve ways of processing, which is my own thing, and I have an assessment that will be coming out soon that will help people figure out what are their best ways of processing. But it also helps you organize. So in the assessment that I have, part of it is it tells you how you process, but it also tells you what the best tools are to organize. So sometimes because people tend to teach the way they process. If you got an organizational specialist to help you and they processed very differently than you, they're not going to be that helpful, most likely because most people will teach the way that it works for them. So even if you have worked with people and it has not been successful, that doesn't mean that you can't find something successful. It means that it might just rest in a new processing.
Darius: I suppose what you could do is you could imagine these ways of processing as different shapes to your mind. Like if you thought of your way of processing as a shape, okay, and they create different combinations of shape, of mind, and your organization needs to fit that way of processing, whether it's visual, verbal, or interpersonal, experiential sort of way of processing. And if you find a way of processing, a way of organizing that matches your way of processing, that's the ideal. Have I talked about my new little matrix, the hard to easy matrix on the podcast yet? I know I've talked to you about it.
Erica: You have? But let's go ahead and mention it because I think that's very interesting. But before you get into that, I do want to respond to, I think of it as colors, and I almost have the colors of the rainbow associated with different processing. But it's interesting
00:10:00
Erica: because, you know, most of us cut across multiple ways of processing. And when you combine processing areas, like you combine the colors, so to speak, and it, or you could think of it as learning or understanding, as more vibrant, more colorful. But I think that one thing to also be aware of is that you might say, well, I'm very visual. Well, you might also be other things, and when you combine them, it makes it that much more powerful.
Darius: That's why this whole multi-sensory thing is kind of such a useful catch all, because it's kind of like a broad-spectrum antibiotic, you know, it's got so many different senses involved that it doesn’t catch all of the processing things that you’re talking about. I know you’re going to check me on this, but what I’m saying is that that’s why so many teachers and educators are like, let’s make this multi process sensory so that there’s an audio component, a visual component, a practical component, a written component, and so that it covers a lot more of maybe the raw materials, the raw building blocks for people to pick up and process information in a way that suits them a little bit more.
Erica: Yeah, well, you know, the senses, the most common senses, you know, the visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic. But I like to step out of that because there are other ways of processing. So when we talk, it's not really a sense, or when we watch, a demonstration, it's not really a sense, which is why I like going, I like stepping away from senses and going into processing, because I also think that in the past, the research, when it's looked at multisensory teaching, there are a lot of, there's been research out there that says that, learning styles don't exist. And I think most of that was focusing on sensory. But the issue is that when you look at processing, it's very real. Yes, it's very real, and we have the research to back it up, and we're looking at more ways of processing. It's, a much wider range of options, but also just that really going back and really hitting that nail on the head of, when you combine ways of processing, it becomes that much more powerful.
Darius: Okay, so let's loop this back to our focus today, which is organizing. I want to talk about the hard to easy matrix, and it relates to the organization side of things, because if we think about the important things we've got to do in life, okay. Often, they feel quite hard, important and hard to do. And then there's other tasks in our life which are unimportant but are often very easy to do. And we live in this kind of dynamic of hard and important tasks and easy and unimportant task. And if you think about it as a box, you've got one side of the box as important and unimportant, the other side of the box hard and easy. And if you could see this as a matrix, you'd see in the top left-hand corner would be really hard and really important, and the bottom corner, right hand corner would be really easy and really unimportant, like TikTok. Now, the goal really is, if you want to get important stuff done, which is really executive function, is deciding to do important stuff, deciding what's important, and getting it done. You need to make that important thing easy to do, shift it from the hard to do pile into the easy to do pile, and then suddenly you enter into the zone of action and getting stuff done. And sometimes people think, oh, it's because I'm lazy that I haven't done this, but actually, it's probably because it's in the hard to do quadrant of important things. And if you take that thing and make it easy to do, but it's still important, but easy to do, then it gets done. Now, for some people, an example would be, I find it very hard if you've got dyslexia to read a long document, but I might find it really easy to listen to a long document. Oh, okay. I'll find a document reader that will read that out to me. And suddenly an important task becomes easy to do, and then you're more likely to get it done. Okay, now, this relates to what you're talking about, Erica, with processing. Okay, so, for example, what's the processing style where you like doing it with other people? What do you call that one?
Erica: Interactive.
Darius: Interactive, okay. So a lot of people find it really hard to do certain tasks on their own, important tasks on their own. But when they schedule it to do it with someone, it suddenly moves from the
00:15:00
Darius: hard to do pile to the easy to do path. I'm, meeting with Erica. We're going to go through my cupboard. We're going to go work through it together and we're going to talk about it. It's going to be social and interactive and we're going to get it done. Now, that might work some people, but not for everybody. But the point I'm making is there might be a person who can flip it from hard to do too easy to do because of the way they process that information.
Erica: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Darius: And so there's all sorts of ways of moving things from the hard to do to the easy to do pile. And in many ways, a lot of what we're going to talk about in these different organizational approaches are actually fundamentally boiled down to this dynamic. How do I shift this from being hard to do over to being easy to do? And there's different ways to cut this. You could be thinking about the way you process information. That's one dynamic. You can filter it from hard to easy. You could look at it through time dynamic. I find it hard to set aside a whole day to do this. Okay, I'm going to figure out what I can do in 25 minutes, in less than 25 minutes. And so you look at it through the time dynamic. I can make this easy to do because I can do it in a shorter space of time. And there's other dynamics that we can use this hard to easy and filter this through as we go through this, that, I think I find it a very useful matrix for me to look at things. My goal is to make important things easy to do. And the other goal is to make unimportant things hard to do.
Erica: Right.
Darius: And so you shift them both along so there's unimportant things for me. Like, you know, I really love this chocolate mint thins, okay. I absolutely love them. Okay. But if I put them in my cupboard, I will eat through them all very quickly. And so I decided, right, I need to make this thing harder to do. So I take the chocolates, and I go put them up on top of my cupboard. And it involves getting a chair, standing on the chair, stepping up onto the worktop in the utility, going up there, getting it. And there's so many, a few. Quite a few steps of me checking myself and saying, do I really want to be doing this? So I put some hardness to do it in there. And so you can use both. Remove the hardness or increase the hardness in order to achieve your goal.
Erica: You know, I think another interesting option to consider is being very conscious about being cognitively flexible. So you might. And part of that is naming where you are. So if you say, I'm so anxious about getting organized, m can you flip it somehow? Like, are there any other emotions that are. Are similar to anxiety, but are almost the antithesis of, for example, I think when I get excited, there's a certain amount of anxiety in there. Or, maybe it's not anxiety, but it feels similar in the body where you feel kind of uppy. Right. And so I'll often suggest to people, when they say, I'm so anxious about it, I'll often say, well, is it possible to shift yourself a little bit and say, hm, could I be excited about it? So, you know, the interesting thing is that you consciously decide, all right, how can I flip this? How can I be cognitively flexible? So that's another kind of free step that you can take before you hop into organization and just say, okay, all right, what am I feeling right now in my body? Oh, I don't like that feeling. Okay. How can I look at it differently? And with that said, should we jump into some strategies on managing disorganization or moving your life more towards order? What do you think?
Darius: Let's do it. Yeah. How do we go from the chaos to order and find that balance between chaos and order?
Erica: Well, I think my mindset has a lot to do with it, which is kind of what we were talking about with being cognitively m flexible, because you're shifting your mindset. And then, of course, motivation. And I think you've talked about that a little bit, too, which is setting realistic goals and also taking the time to recognize those small victories.
Darius: And the payoff, I mean, there is a huge payoff. I mean, you started this right off at the beginning. You are doing this for you, okay? The payoff is for you. And how wonderful is it that you've got an idea, you're trying to remember something. You can open up your apple notes and you can find it immediately. It's fantastic. I mean, I don't manage it every single time, but it's 95% to 90% now. In the past,
00:20:00
Darius: I'd be lucky ten to 15% of the time to get the. My hands on that note, wherever it was on my digital devices, that for me is a form of organization. But having said all of that, I don't have them all neatly filed away in folders. I just use the word search to find it. I just decide I'm going to put three keywords in there that make me help me search for it and find it. It's not foolproof, but it's very good enough for me. And the similar principle can be applied to the organization. The payoff is massive. Hit us. What have you got there, Erika? I know you've got some treasures.
Erica: I think what I'm going to do is I want to go into the real practical techniques about physical aspect of ordering, because we've talked a lot about cognitive order and what are the tools we can use that can expand our working memory and tech tools. But let's step out of tech tools for a moment and get into real life. Let's get into our bodies. Let's get into our homes, because if our homes are disorganized, then often our minds are disorganized. So the first method that I would like to talk about is the con Marie method, which was developed by Marie Kondo. And I know that you and I are familiar with this, and she has a really lovely approach. She was an organizational specialist and has really become very famous with her techniques. And she has a number of steps that I wanted to go over. So step number one is you make a commitment. You commit to tidying up all at once, not just one room, which is interesting, right? So instead of saying, I'm just going to tidy one room, you're actually, instead of creating micro steps, you're going macro. Right from the beginning, you're making that kind of full-hearted commitment. She also suggests, number two is that you visualize, and you envision your ideal lifestyle and the environment that you wish to create. So you actually spend time thinking about how you want your house to look. So you think about those particular whatever m it is that trips you up, whether it's your keys or it is the organization of your closet. And you spend some time visualizing what it looks like. Then you tidy by category. So I like this because she's very organized in her approach, isn't she? So you follow specific order, like clothes, books, papers, miscellaneous, and then maybe sentimental items. And four, you check. I love, this is my favorite part. This is the part that I integrate into my life, which is the joy check. So you hold an item, and you say, does this bring me joy? And if it doesn't, you give it away or, you let it go. And I love that because if you think about it, if you have a, even if it's your bedroom, right. If you were able to get all the things in your bedroom down to just objects that you loved, then you would love the room even more. You'd love your life more. It's a happier experience. Next, she says to organize store items in ways that make them easily accessible and visibly pleasing. Easily accessible and visibly pleasing. I agree.
Darius: Hard to easy.
Erica: Hard, to easy. And then what are the benefits? It creates a lasting sense of order and encourages mindfulness, gratitude, clarity. And yeah, there's nothing better than being an environment that's a decluttered and is just filled with the things that you love. What are your thoughts about that method?
Darius: I think she’s super famous with the, does it give you joy? Aspect? And that’s so powerful. I need to take a little bit of a devil’s advocate on the side of this. Okay. And that is, some people do enjoy being in a bit of chaos. You know, some people really do enjoy, you know, a bit of chaos. And really what we're talking about is here is this sort of universal balance between chaos and order. And if you move too far towards order, it starts to get very, very hard and rigid. If you go too far towards chaos, it becomes chaotic. And that that middle ground between chaos and order is kind of the zone of creativity, of being human, of balance. We as human beings have this kind of somewhere on that middle area. How do we fit in that spectrum of chaos and order? And I do know a lot of creative people, for example, they really do enjoy
00:25:00
Darius: a good dollop of chaos, and it gives them a lot of stimulation, as it were. But it can be too much. Do you know what I mean? And there's sometimes in my life, there are certain areas that I allow to be a bit chaotic. And I go, that's my little pocket of chaos. And I'm allowing myself to have that pocket of chaos. And there's other areas I really do need the order. And so I think I can just feel me, myself reacting to this. And I could probably feel some people listening, reacting to this, going, oh, my goodness. I don't know if I could have every aspect of my life completely in order and everything placed and positioned and so on. And a part of that is a sense of not being able to visualize it, not really being able to believe that it's even possible to have that kind of order in your life. So there's an element of that, and there's another element which is, I'm not sure I want to be so controlled in my life, etcetera. Now, having said all of that, just to give it some perspective, having said all of that, it is still, for me, a bit of a balance between the two. Sometimes the whole world, there's entropy. It's like this disintegrates, the natural disintegration, the breaking apart, that is part of the laws of reality, entropy. Part of what we do is constantly pull things back together and hold our bodies together, hold our lives together, hold our relationships together, hold all sorts of things together. That's part of the human condition to be this binding, holding together force. And so much of what we're talking about is that. And what I love about the joy is, are you putting all of that effort into just keeping order, or are you putting all of that effort into bringing joy into your environment and prioritizing joy, which is so powerful in all of that, is the choice just order, or is it order in order to maximize joy? And that's essentially what we're talking about, order to maximize joy.
Erica: I'll reflect on what you're saying. I think you said one word that really resonated with me. There's a spectrum. And I would say that I am not in your spectrum. I want more order. I love order. And if I had somebody that could come in my house and keep it 100% organized all the time, I would be kissing their feet. I love it. I can't have enough order. So I think that, yeah, think about it as a spectrum. I'm on this. I'm in one extreme where I love extreme order. That resonates with me. Do I, have it? No. Am I able to create it? Yes. Can I maintain it? No. Have I been able to? Would I like to be able to maintain it all the time? Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think it's nice to know.
Darius: The big problem with that is people, Erica, you know, well, this is the big problem. Bring disorder. And I have that in my relationship with my wife because, you know, she just so ordered, so organized, and I am so disorganized. And I love improvisation. She loves preparation and order. I like improvisation, adaptability, etcetera, you know, and we've kind of learnt. Well, actually, she's probably pulled me right into the center, and she's come a little bit away from the order and can tolerate it. You know, she's allergic to disorder and can tolerate a little bit of it and has learned some flexibility. I mean, sometimes we need to negotiate where particular things go.
Erica: I have the same relationship. I have the same relationship where John is just. Although it, depends. He's more disorganized with a calendar and more organized with things, so we're more compatible in the house than we are with the physical.
Darius: Yeah.
Erica: So. And in some ways, he's a little bit better than I am because he tends to be better at putting things away, but better.
Darius: Yeah. My wife.
Erica: Away.
Darius: My wife is hilarious. She is terrible with cupboards. She will just shove stuff in cupboards and shut the door, and everything else is fine. And I'll open the cupboard, and I go, what? How can you be so organized in everything and just shut of stuff in cupboards outside out of mind? Not all the time, but we've got all, our particular quirks. And isn't it interesting? I change when I go into woodworking mode. So, like, if I go into a different type of environment in a different kind of mode, the moment I go into workman mode, I'm a trained joiner. This has to be like this. That has to be like this. That has to be like that because I
00:30:00
Darius: know the consequences that happen if they aren't done like that, because it's much more apparent. I think sometimes a lot of this comes down to the feedback loop. You don't realize the consequences of some disorder in your life or disorganization once you get old enough to realize, and you join the dots. Oh, this happened. That happened. I call them domino problems. Okay. I shared with you the domino problems in the Sailing expedition podcast that we did. There are some problems in life that you can just live without and not sort and get away with. And there's other tiny little problems that become domino problems. If you don't do that, it then causes another big, slightly bigger problem, and then it causes a slightly bigger. And then it hits a bigger domino. It hits a bigger domino until suddenly you're in a life-threatening situation in the middle of the sea, and you realize, oh, my goodness, I should have tightened up that little screw on my rudder when I was on the land, and now I'm outside of the boat. And it's not a direct connection between that and what's just happened, but it becomes five steps. You know that the rudder screw pulled out. It made a jerking motion. We were close hauled. The wind suddenly flipped over because of the sudden movement. I lost my balance. I tried to correct it with the rudder, but the rudder was loose, because now it's slightly broken or completely broken, and then the boat goes over. And I'm sitting in the water going, what just happened? This is a catastrophe. How unlucky I am. No, I accepted a domino problem into my life. I allowed that little domino problem to fall. It's on you. And you get old enough in life that you realize that was on me. It's not just, oh, how unlucky I am. Oh, how did this happen? You realize you joined the dots. And part of that, sad to say, is organization. The, British have the seven p's in the military. Have you heard the seven p's? Proper planning prevents poor performance. It's a military one. There's a polite six p's, if you like to be polite. Proper planning prevents poor performance. No, no, sorry. Proper planning and preparation prevent piss poor performance is the military terminology. So you can avoid really bad performance with planning and preparation. Okay, things go pear shaped. But you can completely avoid really bad performance with proper planning and preparation. And there's a great joy in that. And that's part of being organized, isn't it? It's about planning and preparation, isn't it? It's not just about order. It's like, when I want to cook, I know the knife is there so I can chop something. When I want to do this, I know this is everything I need in order to get what the result I want. It's preparation, isn't it, really?
Erica: It is preparation. But sometimes you have to kind of trick yourself into it. And I'm thinking, because while you were talking, it made me think of a situation with my partner John, where he has a really hard time with time management and planning unless we're going on vacation. He is a joy to travel with because he is so organized. He has everything planned out. And it's funny because we were working with somebody that said, hey, what if you could look at the rest of your life like you look at a vacation? So again, sometimes, there sometimes are these pockets, like you talked about, this pocket of, oh, when I put on my joiner hat, I am organized. So what's interesting about that is you have the capacity, right? And it's, if you can, so you have the capacity and matter. It's really just a matter of, again, shifting your perspective and saying, oh, can I move through this area where I'm disorganized by looking at it with my joiner hat on, for example, or in his case, with, can I look at maybe my time after work as vacation? And if I look at it that way, perhaps that will shift me so that I can tap into my comfort. That's what it's all about. Because I think when it comes to organization, so many people are asked to step out of their comfort zone. But if we can find anywhere in our life where there is that comfort zone for organization, that could be our little sweet spot. Right? Anyway, it's just a thought, but shall we get back to another method that, we've.
Darius: Let's do another method. But I think the big one on this method is the joyous, isn't it? I mean, we're maximizing
00:35:00
Darius: for joy. You know, it's like, I really enjoy knowing where my keys are. I really enjoy, like we did in the last few episodes, opening up my wallet, having the key there, and having that confidence that the key will be there, that gives me joy. I really enjoy this cup that I just got recently because it does everything I want, and I. It's always there where I put it. And there's a joy in knowing it is where it's meant to be. And so there's a joy in having what you need when you need it as well. That's part of this planning and preparation for the holiday sort of thing. So the joy, what gives you joy? And there's something in, oh, this is interesting, you know, the processing approach. Sometimes the thing might give you joy. Yes. But let's expand that whole joy concept of does this thing give me joy? Which I love, just fantastic, you know, around my desk. Does that iPad there give me joy? Yes. Does it give me joy? In that position is another question.
Erica: Interesting. That is another question.
Darius: Yeah. And I had a second screen, and it was really annoying me because it was right on the edge of my desk, and it was sliding off sort of thing. And I was like, oh. And I thought, right, how much of the brackets that I can put on the wall so I can just put it on a swivel bracket. 15 pounds Amazon, one day later, and 1 hour of screwing it up. Oh, the joy. I've got the same screen, but it's in the place that I need it. And in many ways, sometimes it's the subtleties of having it in the place that you need it, but to have it in the place that you need it sometimes you need a bit of organization, you need a bit of space, you need a bit of capacity, need some options. Do you know what I mean? But if you're so cluttered, you can't get the option, you just have to settle with. This is the only place I could put it. Then that's trouble. Anyway, there's more to talk about, isn't there? Yeah.
Erica: We could go down so many rabbit holes. Yeah. Like time saving. Right? Because if you're really organized, you save a lot of time. Because a lot of people will say, oh, I don't have time to organize. My reaction is you don't have time not to organize.
Darius: That's right. It's like sharpening, your axe analogy from the seven habits of successful people. Who was it that wrote that? Kofi. and he talks about sharpening the axe. You can go out there and just keep hacking at that tree with a blunt axe. But then there's another guy who comes along and is cutting for 45 minutes in a day. And then ten minutes, he's sitting there at the bottom of the tree just sharpening his axe. And the person comes along, goes, why are you having a break? I'm not having a break. I'm sharpening my axe. Well, he is having a break, but he's sharpening his axe, and then he gets the job done faster. Because in those 745 minutes in a day, rather than seven, 1 hour in a day, because he's sharpening his axe. And that metaphor is partly to do with organization as well, the proper planning and preparation.
Erica: I mean, honestly, if we spent ten minutes a day organizing, that's all we'd really need. Because most people just don't organize, and it gets to a certain point, and then they have to spend a lot of time. But if you just spent a little bit of time every day, then you would maintain it anyway. Let's move on to the four-box method. And this method involves sorting items into four keeps, donate, or sell trash and relocate. And it really just has to do with applying to your space. And the steps are, you gather your supplies, so you prepare the four boxes or bins and label them. If you're really crazy about that stuff, tackle one area at a time, which is a little different than the last method. So choose a specific area or category to work on. Then place each item into one of the four boxes. And then what you decide is with the keep, you find a designated space for these items for the donate and sell. You pack these items immediately for donation or sell, and ideally, get them out of your house ASAP. Trash. Dispose of them responsibly, and then relocate. Move items that belong into another room to their appropriate place. And the benefits are, it's simple, effective, and it helps make decisions quickly.
Darius: Did I tell you about the tidying up technique I used with my daughters when they were young that relates to this the big pile technique.
Erica: Yes, but you can tell us again.
Darius: Okay, so, basically, when my kids were young, and now I realize one of them has got ADHD and dyslexia and the other one's got dyslexia, and this whole automaticity and decision making and tidying up is a big thing. So putting things away was really hard for them. So we came up with a strategy at the end of their playtime to just brush and push everything into one big pile in the middle of the room. Everything, all the toys, all the
00:40:00
Darius: clothes, all the cuddlies, everything that's strewn everywhere, just went onto one big pile. And in a way, that's kind of what we're talking about here. You choose one place, like, we're going to tidy up this room. We just pull everything into one place. And then we have simplified the decision making into those four boxes. And it's similar thing happen when you're tidying things up, in a day-to-day basis. Where does this go? And the four boxes give everything a place to go, everything in its place, and a place for everything. So a place for everything and everything in its place is fundamentally how this works. A place for everything and everything in its place. And we've created four temporary places in those boxes to make the decision making a bit more straightforward in terms of organizing. But I do find this pushing everything into one big pile very helpful for me personally. Still, just push everything into one pile, or think of it as one big pile in that environment. And then you decide what's the biggest item in that pile, and you grab the biggest item. No decisions. You just look what's big, what's smaller? I'll go for the big thing. You're not thinking what's most important. Should I do this? Should I do that? So much time gets wasted on the. Where do I start? Start with the biggest lump of cuddly toy and find its place.
Erica: Yeah. I'm glad you went into that detail, because I can remember that that's what worked so well with your daughters, is you just go from big too small.
Darius: Very simple, and it's a big win if you don't get through it all. At least you've decimated half the pile in 510 minutes, as opposed to them picking around the room and, oh, I put these away. I put this away, and it's not changed very much.
Erica: Absolutely.
Darius: You know, the four boxes, having done this so many times in my life, when you've got kids and they grow up to being adults, you end up having so much stuff because they've got all the childhood stuff, they've got all their primary school stuff, they've got all their tween age stuff, they've got all their teenage stuff, and then they've got all their adult stuff still in the same place. And at, each sort of phase, normally every sort of three to four years, as they shift into a new mode of being, of development, they need a whole new set of kind of stuff round about them, I mean, physically. And so you need to have this kind of action plan of getting stuff out the door and then organizing the new stuff in. And we found the breakthrough for us was to have one clear storage space. And this happened to us, massive breakthrough. You know, these beds that you get, these ottoman beds that sort of hydraulically lift up, and the whole space underneath it is one big kind of storage space. We got one of those and it was completely empty. And then we decided, oh, we're going to sort out the kids’ stuff into those kinds of boxes. Well, where are those boxes going to go? I mean, honestly, where are those bonnet boxes going to go? I mean, your garage is probably full, your lounge is probably full, your cupboards are probably full. There's where everything's already in its place. You don't have that capacity. But if you create one space with capacity, if it's a cupboard, a new empty shed outside, that becomes the clearinghouse of that stuff. It's amazing how that sort of stuff gets unlocked. You go into the playroom, you sort through all these boxes, you end up with six or seven boxes. Okay, some of them go into the car and go to charity, and the others go to the bin, but there's still other stuff, the relocate stuff, etcetera. You can put them away and you've got the order. And so it creates this. It's like those little games with the squares on them that you have to shuffle around, those little plastic squares. You need one gap to move things around and to slide it around. If there isn't that capacity, then you can't shuffle things around. And reality is, when you're doing this, you do need the capacity to shuffle it around. And where Marie Kondo does it, etcetera, often they what is it? There's one lady in Scotland who's really famous for this, in the UK is really famous for this. She takes a whole warehouse and empties the whole house into the warehouse and lays them out per room in taped out areas. And they have to do all this decision-making process, and they go through the whole process and then they put it all back into the house, whatever they want to keep, but they need the capacity. I think that's one key element, all of this. Create one space that you can clear through all of this stuff, make those decisions, and have the capacity to bundle it away and then process it later on in the day or week.
Erica: Yeah. Yeah. Well,
00:45:00
Erica: you know, one of the things I love and hate about my house is that I don't have an attic or a basement, and I hate it, but if I had it, they'd be full.
Darius: It would, of course.
Erica: So I'm glad I don't have it. And that takes us as a perfect little, segue to our next strategy, which is the minimalistic game. And this is popularized by the minimalists. This method gamifies decluttering. Each day, you get rid of a number of items corresponding to the day of the month. One item on the first, two on the second, and so forth. Oh, isn't that interesting? Right?
Darius: Oh, wow.
Erica: I know, right? That's mind blowing. So the steps, you start small. Begin with one item on the first day and increase account each day. Two, involve family and friends. Turn it into a challenge for added motivation. Three, evaluate progress. You reflect on the process at the end of the month. So it's interesting. Right. It's super challenging, but that would. That seems. I like the way that they turn it into a game. Anytime you gamify something, it changes the chemistry in the brain because it gives you a little bit of a dopamine hit.
Darius: Yeah.
Erica: And also then bringing in family members or other friends. And the fun thing about that is, if you do it with friends, you might end up swapping your stuff with each other, which is maybe a good thing or maybe a bad thing. You just have to make sure if you're swapping it or you're taking in something new, that you love it. Right. But that feels like a fun option.
Darius: And then I don't know if it's for everyone. Is it. It's like removing a plaster, you know, are you the type of person, like, picking it off slowly, or are you. You, like, wicking it off quickly? I remember with my daughter, she had a real attachment to lots of things, and so this process was very hard for her to let go of these things. And there's an emotional component to all of this, I think that needs to be taken into account of here, where you have an emotional attachment to that little cuddly. You have another little cuddly, you end up having 50 cuddlies on your bed, and you know, you're 17 years old and you now have 50 cuddlies, and you also have all the rest of your toiletries and everything else, etcetera. And you're like, do you need this in your life? Well, you know, and so what we had to do is we said, okay, we're not going to get rid of this. We're just going to put it away for six months and we're going to revisit it in six months, okay? So promise it's not going away. Still yours. But do you really need it in your room right now? No, I don't. Okay, let's put it in this box. Let's put it away into this. The back of the garage or our dad's garage. It ended up being our dad's garage. We needed the capacity. We didn't have a loft either. And we said, we’ll revisit this in six months. And then in six months’ time, we said, do you want those cuddlies? And she was like, well, I don't think so. I've not really wanted them. And so what we did was we brought them back, okay? Which is a bit of a dangerous thing, okay? Opened up the box and all these cuddlies sort of bounce out, you know, and she's like, oh, oh, oh. You know. And then we go, which ones do you really want to keep? And she says, I want to keep these five, but the other 55 I'm ready to let go of now. She disconnected emotionally enough. Okay. So in that case, it was like a slow release, you know, it was like, we're taking this away and we're just going to slowly allow you to emotionally detach, you know? So I think there's a lot. A lot of people have very. It's like comfort eating. It's like hoarding, you know, it's like a form of comfort, isn't it?
Erica: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and of course, the thing that really works for me is, do I love this? And even if I say I kind of love this, then I'll give it away. You know, a really sweet thing happened. I had my best friend from when I was four years old. We hadn't spent any time together since we were little. And she contacted me and said, can I come visit you? And I said, absolutely. And I must have been around tenish, maybe a little bit younger than that. And we had been in Africa, and we'd brought back all these little African sculptures and made out of soapstone, and I gave them away to everybody at my birthday. And when she came, she said to me, she said, there's this thing you gave me when we were little, and I've cherished it my whole life and has traveled every. Everywhere with me. And I want to give it back to you. But the next
00:50:00
Erica: time I see you, I want you to give it back to me. And so she gave me this little soapstone hippo. Well, it just so happens that I kept one. I kept a rhino. So I swapped with her. She got the rhino, and I got the hippo, and we have a little picture of them face to face with each other. Yeah, before she left. But it was just. It was. There is something really lovely to sharing. Like, if someone is in my house and they say, I love this, in that moment, I'll say, do I love it so much that I can't give it away? And if I say yes, I keep it. But if I say no, I say, it's yours. And they're always like, are you kidding me? I'm like, no, no, no. If you love it, that's where it should be.
Darius: Nice. Nice.
Erica: And it's so rewarding to look at your things that way.
Darius: Yes.
Erica: So rewarding. It's so much fun.
Darius: The photo thing is a good one, though. I think it's useful because some people like. It happens with documents. You know, university. This is my dissertation, or this is my lecture notes, or this is such and such. Or this is a precious thing from my father or mother or whatever. What do I do with it? It's not super valuable. Well, sometimes why don't you take a photo of it and see you're still keeping it. You're still keeping the image of it. And so sometimes the photo is enough of keeping then the actual object itself.
Erica: Yeah, yeah, good point. So, onto Swedish death cleaning. This method involves decluttering with the idea of easing the burden on, loved ones after you're gone. It encourages people to clear out unnecessary items over time. And the steps are to one, reflect. Consider what items are truly necessary and meaningful. Two, declutter. Gradually focus on one area or category at a time. Three, gift or donate. Pass on items that might be useful or meaningful to others. And four, document memories or sentimental items. Consider documenting them in a journal or photos. Ding, ding, ding. Before letting them go. That's sweet. So you're decluttering for your loved ones so that they don't have your clutter.
Darius: What a gift that is to death. Clean. Wow. You know, because clearing through someone else, a loved one's life, afterwards takes months. Months and months and months.
Erica: I mean, and, what if you don't live in the same country? My poor brother is going through all of my grandfather's stuff, my grandmother's stuff, my mother's stuff, my father's stuff in England. But guess what? He lives in Italy. So it's an enormous burden. It's not going to be months. It's going to be years.
Darius: Yes.
Erica: And it's a real burden. And you know what? That's not easy for him. That's, not an easy task for him. He's not one that really likes or is that great at organization. So, yeah, it would have been a real gift if my mother could have done that for him. But I guess it is what it is. But I like that one. Right. It's a very different one.
Darius: Swedish death cleaning. what a title.
Erica: Right? And then there's one last one. It's called the 2020 rule. Well, there are lots of them.
Darius: I like the idea of this one. Tell us more about the 2020. This is intriguing.
Erica: Right now there are more, but these are just the ones that I selected. So again, created by the minimalist. This rule I love, this, suggests that if you can replace an item for less than $20 and in less than 20 minutes, you should let it go.
Darius: Yes.
Erica: Right. Identify items. Consider items you are hesitating to discard. Apply the rule. If the item can be replaced easily and, inexpensively, let it go. And of course, the minimalistic impact focus on keeping items that have a significant impact on your daily life. And they say the benefits is to reduce attachment to inexpensive and easily replaceable items.
Darius: Yeah, I think there's a lot in that. Like, I remember my garage. I had a garage, and it was so full, it was filled up to eight foot high, literally all the way to 1ft away from the front, roll up door. And it was just a nightmare we had. It was a half garage, you know, because I turned the back into an office. And so it was like a garage's worth of stuff. But instead of spreading along the walls, the side walls and the back walls, it was half of a garage. But then there was some more stuff put in the middle, and then it built up. And a year and a half, two years into it, I was realizing, I know that there's a socket wrench
00:55:00
Darius: in that far corner, but I can't get to it because it's going to take me an hour and a half to get to it, and I can't use it. So I ended up with all this stuff that although I had it, I couldn’t use it. And so it occurred to me that on eBay, I could buy that item on eBay, and then I could sell it on eBay. and that’s, that 2020 rule. And it’s having that confidence to just let that go, knowing that you could buy it back. Because do you know what? All this extra stuff robbed me of using the stuff that I really wanted to use that was in amongst it. You're stealing from yourself. that's really a fundamental issue.
Erica: You know, it's funny because it reminds me of, oh, gosh, I was in my early twenties, and I lived with my boyfriend's family in Brownwood, Texas. And the mom was very disorganized and ran a firework business all over the state. And, you know, they were so busy moving all the fireworks that I decided to organize. She had a number of different buildings, and she had this one building. I cleared it out. Then I went through all of her stuff, and I basically what I found was that she could never find things, so she would just buy more and more and more and more stuff. I turned that little shed into a store. So it was amazing. Yeah, I found like ten new hammers, and I made it look like a whole store for her so that anytime she needed something new, she would go to her little store, and she already had it. She already had it. But it was just amazing. And she couldn't believe how much she had and how much she now never, ever really needed to get again. But that's what happens when we're chronically disorganized. What ends up happening is we just keep buying more stuff that we already have.
Darius: So the 2020 rule at 20 minutes is, are you basically saying if I could go onto Amazon or eBay and buy it in less than 20 minutes and get it delivered to me for less than $20, why am I keeping it in my right?
Erica: Well, and this is completely, much more approachable, easy, and much easier to consider now that we have Amazon.
Darius: Yes.
Erica: And sites like this, where it really is easy, when we didn't have things delivered to our homes, it wasn't so easy.
Darius: Yes. But now to have a store and be more reliable, rely on itself, you,
Erica: Know, for me, I'd also throw into that role as how big is it? You know, how much room does it take? Because if it takes up a lot of room and it's less than $20 and you can replace it that easily, then, yeah, it definitely needs to go. But if it's something really small, it's funny. But then that's the problem is my, most of my drawers are filled with all these little things.
Darius: Yeah.
Darius: Well I mean little things. Yeah. I mean. But the thing is think about the cost per square foot of storing that thing. Okay. I used to be a property investor, right? Okay. In order to build 1 house, you need at least two to 4000 pounds. 1 m² is a minimum of 2000 pounds to build. Okay. Like a shed worth of space. a shed's worth of kind of storage is a thousand pounds a square meter. A house's storage is three to 5000 pounds a square meter. So if that item is going to it costs $50 and it's going to sit as a box. Using up 1 your house, it's costing you 2000 to 3000 pounds. Oh, to store it there.
Erica: I had a friend who went through a divorce rented places after that but threw his stuff in storage. But he had like three different storage places. Well, 20 years later, right, still paying for all of that. We calculated he could have had a mansion. He could have had a house already paid for with all the money he spent storing these things. And he didn't even remember what was in there. So it's so easy to fall into that. Where we are, we are spending money storing
01:00:00
Erica: all of these things and we have to think very clearly, you know, is it worth it?
Darius: I think it becomes really a big issue with children. You know, like children have a lot of stuff and they also have a lot of big stuff, Erica. Like some big plastic truck, you know, some big cuddly, you know, polar bear or some big something or other. And then you realize they’re not playing with that anymore. They might play with it once every two weeks but its occupying one 20th of their whole bedroom. And so there’s this point where we’ve got the joy of these kind of toy libraries where you can actually take your toy, borrow it for two weeks, get obsessed with it for two weeks, stop playing with it, take it back, swap it out for another toy, go down to the charity shop, buy this and go and take another toy and give it to the charity shop and swap it out and so on. There's this opportunity and I think, you know, what's so interesting in this is also relates to what quality of stuff do you buy? And this is a bit of a bleak, but it does relate to it because if you buy really high, a few really high-quality minimalist things, you have great joy in that high quality item. You may not have many of them, but you've got a less cluttered space. But that could apply to your clothes, it could apply to your toys, tools, whatever it is. You know, buy a high quality one of it so it lasts and you're not constantly replacing it or etcetera. Or it's also still valuable enough to pass on to someone that they'll be thankful for it or sell it or resell it, or vintage, using vintage for your clothes, etcetera. That's what happens when you buy quality stuff. It's actually easier to get rid of. You get some of the money back and you get joy in it. And there's something really multi beneficial of buying less but higher quality stuff.
Erica: And I'm going to flip it, too, from what you're saying. going back in time. But when I was a little kid, I think of the things that I love to do the most. I loved being in, a rainstorm, going out on the side of the road with a cup and just playing in the water, rushing down the side of the road, and that cost nothing. And I loved turning my chairs upside down in my room and creating little houses, and I made them out of stuff. I can remember someone talking about how his son absolutely loved the tin can so many times. We're buying these really expensive toys that are really expensive and complex, but they don't really trigger creativity. You know what I mean? And sometimes you'll find that your kid's favorite toys are really the simplest things that really integrate creativity. Or maybe they're not even things.
Darius: Okay, so, Erika, we've got to wrap this up now. How should we wrap this up?
Erica: Well, I think, you know, let's just reflect on a few key points. Think about what are your best ways of processing so that you can find your sweet spot. Think about being cognitively flexible and looking at pain points from maybe a different vantage point. what are some other key points that you'd like to pull out?
Darius: Yeah. Make sure you start thinking about strategies from moving it from hard to easy, reframing it, as this isn't just your mum or dad or that inner voice. Sometimes you've got that inner critic. Oh, you've got to be more organized. Stop being so disorganized. It's you now saying, no, actually, I want to do this for me. This is going to give me what I want to. I'm going to start planning and preparing for life. I'm going to make sure I've got what I need when I need it, and things aren't in my way. I'm not losing things and that the things I have round about me give me great joy and have great value are quality things in the right place, in the right position, the right item, doing the right job.
Erica: Gamify. Gamify. Find the joy in getting to where you want to be. Do it for others. The Swedish death cleaning. don't leave your stuff for other people to sort through. And then that 2020 rule is kind of fun, too, where, you know, it doesn't cost very much. Let it go, because you can get it again if, when and if you need it.
Darius: Yes. And also, I think, sort of like the ecological
01:05:00
Darius: side of things, you know, start learning to borrow things. You know, go to the library to borrow your kids’ toys, go to charity shops to pick up new toys and drop off old toys. Get into that habit of just swapping things out. You know, there's a great joy in that.
Erica: Or gifting. Gifting. I remember a student of mine came to me, and she loved working with miniature furniture. And I was like, wow. When I was a little kid, we created a ton of that. And the next week she came. I said, here are three boxes. This is actually. These are very valuable. These were created, and when you're done with them, will you gift them to another little kid? And she was joy. But it brought me so much joy not to leave it in an attic somewhere, to gift it to someone and give it a new life.
Darius: And the key to that is quality. We had this amazing little coat that my grandmother, my wife's grandmother bought for our three-year-old daughter. It was this woolen coat, and it was green, and it had white sheep on it, and it was all fluffy and so on. But it was really expensive. We didn't have a lot of money at that time. She didn't have a lot of money. It was like 150 pounds, you know, like 200, $300 worth of a little jacket for a little kid, you know, was a lovely woolen, high quality jacket. We passed that, on to a family, and they loved it so much that they passed it on to a family. They passed it onto another family. And we tracked that jacket because it went through all sorts of different families and friends that we knew of. And because it was such high quality, people still wanted it. It wasn't tattered, it was still giveable. You know, it was still something of value. They could see it; they could feel it. Until 15 years later, maybe 20 years later, it gone through about 15 to 20 different children. It came back to us, and we gave it to our new nephew, who had been born, so it kind of came back to our family. Do you know what I mean?
Erica: That's a sweet story.
Darius: And that's like a message of how the quality you invest and then you pass it on and gift it to other. It comes back to you. Do you know what I mean?
Erica: It does. It does. I get so much joy of giving the things that I used to love, and maybe I still love them a little bit, but not enough, you know.
Darius: And let it go.
Erica: See them in my friend's house, and I see their joy. It's beautiful.
Darius: Yes.
Erica: And I know where it is. I know where it is. It's not in my closet. It's out in their home. It's beautiful.
Darius: Yes. It's fantastic, Erica. Well, another great podcast. Till next time. See ya.
Erica: bye bye. Thank you for joining our conversation here at the personal Brain trainer podcast. This is Dr Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran.
Darius: Check out the show notes for links to resources mentioned in the podcast, and please leave us a review and share us on social media until next time. Bye.
01:08:14